[RIFT][Guide] Your Quickstart Guide to Rift

So you’re interested in either starting or returning to Rift; our community has addressed a lot of questions recently on the game, the myriad of changes introduced since launch, and this thread is a consolidation of some of those posts, structured in a single place for your review:

Contents:

1. What Does Rift Do Differently?
2. How Often is Rift Updated?
3. What Are the Classes and Souls In Rift?
4. How do the Souls work in Rift?
5. How Have Macros Changed in Rift?
6. What is Storm Legion?
7. How Can I Try Rift?
8. What are the rewards for Refer a Friend in Rift?
9. What do I need to do to come back?
10. What are some of the Community Sources and References for Rift?
11. How Can I get in Touch with Rift CS?
12. Addons and Rift?

What Does Rift Do Differently? – Credit to Fencers for some of the below information

- A modular class system (play melee as mage, AOE healer as Rogue, or spellcaster warrior?)

- Player & Guild Housing

- Hotjoin open world PVE

- Several Epic Quest Chains

- Endless spec choice options, with many different slot roles

- Instant Adventures - think LFR but with out in the open world with quests and mini bosses

- Veteran rewards allow you to access nifty costumes, pets and mounts based on the length of your subscription to the game

- ability to play a pure support class - viable in group PvE environments

What are the Classes and Souls in Rift? – Credit to Zarasi for this post

Warrior:

Paladin - Tank with some group and self healing capabilities, somewhat akin to the paladin of WoW

Reaver - death-based DoT tank somewhat akin to a death knight

Void Knight - A tank that ruins the days of many a caster. Still able to tank physical encounters of course, but anti-magic is their theme.

Warlord - a Dps soul that has some tank utilities as well as the ability to block without a shield. somewhat of a typical up in your face warrior

Champion - a DPS soul that is most effective in aoe scenarios, having many abilities which gain in power when more targets are available.

Paragon - a DPS soul that is almost exclusive single target. Has the follow-up attack theme, where some attacks can only be used immediately following an attack point builder. these tend to be the meatiest abilities and hard hitters of the bunch.

Riftblade - and elemental DPS warrior who also has moderate aoe cabalities and a few ranged attacks. Based entirely on magical damage

Beastmaster - a Bleed-based warrior who summons a giant cat, this is a Support soul that performs best by amplifying the power of his group members, rather than his personal dps.

Tempest - a Ranged DPS soul that channels powerful lightning strikes through their weapons, bringing the storm to their enemies. As one might imagine, they are less powerful in melee range than a melee soul would be.

Rogue:

Assassin - Tried and true stealthy stealth stabby stabby. Based on physical damage, from-stealth attacks, bleeds, and poisons. similar to a WoW rogue.

NightBlade - A stealth based rogue who wields attacks based heavily in fire and death, dealing almost no physical damage at all. Many of their attacks, even from-stealth attacks, can be used at range, though they are most effective in melee.

Saboteur - a medium-range rogue that specialises in the use of traps, remote-detonated charges and other high-explosives. The saboteur is primarily based on area damage and being a little bit tactical - good trap and landmine placement can make it hard to approach a prepared player.

Bladedancer - a purely physical rogue with a unique attack rhythm. Many abilities can only be used to follow certain other abilities in the rotation (kind of like paragon from warrior) and weaving in cooldowns at the most effective moments. the bladedancer also has (or did last i played one) a number of evasive tools.

Riftstalker - A rogue tank who is everywhere and nowhere all at once. far and away the most mobile of all souls, the riftstalker can teleport all across the battlefield, maintaining powerful partial-absorbtion shielding that makes them very tough to kill.

Ranger: a hunter-esque ranged rogue with a pet. if you've played a hunter in WoW, ranger won't be anything new to you.

Marksman: another ranged soul, this one focuses more on personal damage and foregoes the pet. also very mobile and tough to pin down. still pretty hunter-like.

bard: as a support soul, the bard is sought after in raids and other group content, providing powerful buffs to his allies, debuffs to his enemies, and a little healing on the side.

Tactician - Wielder of empyrean technology, this rogue uses powerful gadgets, group buffing cores, and flamethrowers in every flavor of the rainbow to deal burning freezing deathy death to groups of enemies and healing to groups of allies. and flamethrowers, did i mention those?

Mage:

Pyromancer - a fire mage. he burns things. what more need be said, really. guaranteed to appeal to the pyromaniac in all of us.

Elementalist - a summoner of elemental minions, with four different pets to fit any situation. focus on dealing elemental damage in "cycles", which is to say that damage of one element makes a target more vulnerable to damage of the next element in the cycle, and so on.

Stormcaller - master of ice and lightning, this mage deals aoe damage out the whazoo. best applied with freezing blizzards, scorching lightning storms, and all around painful aoe fun.

Necromancer - summoner of undead minions, has several pets to fill several roles. has cooldowns that allow him to summon more pets. and yet more pets after that. if you want to be the one man army, this soul's for you. just watch out for rogues.

Warlock - a master of death magic, this guy has so many DoTs that even the angry onyxia raid leader is satisfied. kinda like an affliction warlock of WoW, only with more dots. yes. more. dots.

Dominator - a crowd control master with a sprinkling of aoe damage on the side, i'm pretty sure this guy has some kind of cc or debuff on like 90% of his abilities. he shuts you down and eats raw mana for breakfast with a side of lightning-charred warrior. If you want to pvp and make people hate you more than puremallace hates atrius, this is the soul for you.

Archon - a Support mage that steals the strengths of his enemies, making them his own. Which he then gives to his group. he's got debuffs, he's got buffs, and he's got auras. and then he has more buffs. groups love you. bosses hate your power drain. set it all up so your groupmates can bring on the dps pain train even harder than before.

Chloromancer - A life based healing mage that specializes in healing allies by casting offensive spells at his enemies. With an aura that allows his life damage spells to also heal his groupmates, this guy is a healer with a liberal sprinkling of pew pew. Has a few "traditional" healing spells to supplement his arsenal of damage-to-healing capabilities.

Harbinger - Alternate spelling: harBANGER - the mage that is out to replace all your raid's warriors, the harbinger is a melee specialist who can transmute his staff into a sword, axe, or scythe and get up in the face of the enemy. Watch as bewildered warriors go "wtf" while YOU charge THEM and cut em up, while rogues stand around waiting for all those nonexistent cast-time spells to interrupt. Also has a mage armor that allows it to frequently insta-cast spells from other souls just to add to the fun. And of course, if the smell of stinky sweaty rogues and warriors offend you, you can blink away and summon your phantom blade to continue melee attacks from full spell range for a short time. He's a magic man who can fight like a bawss and (if you're a warrior), he's here to TAKE YOUR JOB. (THEY TIK OUR JIIIIIBS)

Cleric:

Justicar - defender of the righteous, this tanking juggernaut can also throw out some healing on the side.

Inquisitor - This spellcaster soul mixes searing light with painful death magic and does not like you. You have been judged and found wanting. Has a few DoT spells but is based mostly around bolts of light or death with the occasional face-melting channeled spell.

Cabalist - This death-based caster deals absurd area damage with a combination of DoTs and delayed-blast attacks. Has some fun utilities as well, like raid-wide spell reflects. Trion saw that you liked to aoe so they put aoes in your aoes so you can aoe while you aoe and this is the love-child of that relationship.

Warden - a water based healer, the warden specializes in area healing through so many HoT's a wow druid would get a hard-on just thinking about them. sure he cant shapeshift, but nobody liked furries anyways.

Purifier - If you took a disc priest and gave him fire magic and about ten times as many shields, you'd have something that looked fairly close to this guy. Searing away all traces of your wounds he will then throw so many shields around that the boss will think your tank is a hacker because he never takes damage. Hangs out with pyromancers in his spare time.

Sentinel - yet another healer, this one uses life/holy magic and has a ton of cooldowns to heal hard better faster and stronger, his work is never over because the tanks are gonna get overconfident and blame him for wipes anyways.

Druid - A melee soul who's motto is "carry a big stick", he also summons a number of fae minions to suit the situation. Dedicated to Nature, he pounds foes with a massive hammer, crushing earth magic, and entangling life magic. Spends a somewhat large amount of time cleaning up after and aiding his satyr minion, who admittedly has somewhat of a drinking problem. MEAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDD. No actual trees were harmed in the making of his weapons.

Shaman - This melee soul combines crushing melee attacks with shocking lightning strikes and freezing ice blasts colder than your ex-girlfriends heart to hammer your foes into next week. This guy is so tough he shovels his driveway in shorts and t-shirt. No matter how tempting it may seem, do not engage this warrior in a snowball fight. he'll throw the whole damn snowbank at you. every. time.

Defiler - Healing to Die for! This wielder of death magic is going to save your live even if he has to kill y-.. i mean, transform you into something more aesthetically pleasing! Armed with powerful links that redirect damage from his allies to himself, which he then can absorb and gain power from the pain. this healer is based around stackable delayed heals which he may then trigger at will. Also has a number of offensive links called "bonds" which allow him to return damage, siphon healing, and even regain health when his target attacks! Has solid aoe damage as well and has a number of useful dps builds. On his off-days he is a makeup artist for horror movies. Don't worry, most of the.. aesthetic aspects of his healing will wear off eventually.

How do these Soul Thingies work? – Credit to Fencers for the below:
Well all one needs to understand is that the "soul system" is both a combination class and talent tree. A "soul" or otherwise class tree isn't strictly a talent tree:

Such as in the case of choosing Fire spec as a Mage in WOW. You get all the other Mage abilities [portals, arcane blast, frost bolt, etc] from just being Mage in WOW. That progression is both linear and singular.

The Fire tree are where [were] the talents lay. Picking up a few abilities here and there. But the basic abilities and nature of what you were was defined by being a Mage in WoW.

Or Warrior, Paladin, etc.

In Rift "mage" just a template.

Because one is not strictly a "fire mage" by equipping the Pyromancer class [or soul as they are called in game]. Progression as a Pyromancer is vertical and horizontal.

Observe;

^ As I invest talent points upward the bottom abilities are unlocked. A Pyromancer is entitled only to the abilities unlocked at the bottom of the talent tree. The so called "root abilities". Thus what you are as a Pyromancer in this sense is both defined by total invested points and unlocks. 2 points unlock this spell, 12 this other one, 20 another, etc.

But one might choose to add another class or soul to that Pyromancer. Such as...

^ Elementalist. A pet using class with broad elemental spells [fire, earth, lighting]. And thus progress upward and downward along the Elementalist's talent and abilities.

Gaining the force of both the Pyromancer and Elementalist.

A third might be added. Like this...

^ Adding Archon, a support/DPS mage class. Again, combing the full abilities of all three classes as you see fit to distribute points.

A Pyromancer will never get his "frost bolt" by virtue of just being a mage in Rift. Because your class is not Mage. Your "spec" is not Fire.

You are are what make of yourself, so to speak.

Rift has a lot of talk about Macros. How do these work exactly? - Credit to Fencers for the below

Storm Legion (the Rift expansion) they changed the way many skills work so that it is no longer effective to have 1-2 macros with like 9+ skills linked to just a couple of macros. It's just like Warcraft basically- procs, buffs, skill priorities.

Some of them won't even work because Rift's macro system is... well, it's not a macro system at all. It's a fail through system. Meaning that skills fire sequentially as long as they are off cool down.

Bound to hotkey #1, each press of the 1 key would advance the macro one step. Nothing executes all at once in Rift. An old macro would work like so:

1st press: cast Rift Strike <- use if not on CD
2nd press: cast Frost Strike <- use if above skill is on CD
3rd press: cast Searing Strike <- use if above skill is on CD
4th press: cast Charged Pule <- use if above skill is on CD
5th press: cast Flamespear <- use if above skill is on CD
6th press: cast Shock Pulse <- use if above skill is on CD

In SL many of those type of macros have different timings which break a lot of old macros. Forcing some skills to have a more situational aspect now.

Above macro would partially no longer function in Storm Legion. Would be a MAJOR DPS loss too. Simply due to the fact you are not prioritizing or controlling buffs/debuffs with such macros any longer.

As you can see, it would simply not work. Since the first skill will never be off CD. If you moved skills such as Rift Strike and Frost Strike lower in the macro sequence you would lose the buffs they provide. Benefiting from neither buff in any situation. Players have to control Frost Strike, Rift Strike, Charged Pulse and Flamespear individually to optimize damage.

Naturally, there are some soul combinations that have more easily macro'd abilities than others. The above example was merely theoretical. Nonetheless, SL went a long way to breaking a lot of the heavy macro-ing of Rift for serious play.

What is this Storm Legion you keep mentioning? - Credit to Tarien for the below information

Storm Legion is Rif'ts first expansion and launched on November 13th. For an idea as to what this really heavy expansion contained (it tripled the size of the existing world) please refer to the following - the list is incomplete because frankly, there was just too much added and not enough time to document it

Fair enough, there is a free trial (infinite in duration) that allows you to level up to 20. Here you go:Source
No credit card is required for this feature.Ok, So I’m starting to get hooked, is there some sort of refer a Friend program or something that I can get some nice benefits?

Yes, there is. Here are the benefits for ascension
• Novitiate's Phylactery - A trinket that increases all experience gained by 5% until level 20!
• Special in-game title: "The Chosen"
• 10x Inscribed Sourcestone
• 5x Plaque of Achievement
• 3x Mark of Ascension
• 2x Lucky Coin
• 5x Mark of Retribution
Should you want to be referred, many of our community members have thrown in their codes for your consideration, please check:http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...end-megathread

The short answer is yes, the long answer is that Rift's UI is almost entirely customizable in game, so not a lot of addons are needed to enhance the aesthetic aspects of the game. Also, frequent updates have placed a heavy demand on the creators and addons usually go out of date very quickly. nevertheless, Addons are hosted on curse.com and RiftUI.com.

(More to come)

Last edited by Antipathy; 2012-12-11 at 07:38 PM.

{I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. }

telarapedia - mostly just use the Runes by Slot list there, it is amazing, but has it's own Database that is decent
rift.zam.com - another database that is just decent, though soul calc is messed up.
rift.magelo.com - another database that is decent, also currently has the best soul calc.

may also want to mention UI and AddOns briefly and point to both curse.com and RiftUI.com for additional resources.

This guide was seriously a great write up, makes me all kinds of excited to keep trying it out. I was confused by the social media integration, because it sounded like Raptr. I had no idea about RiftConnect until I googled it. Maybe just adding that is what the name of the feature is will help new players like myself find it in the game easier.

I have to realy thank you for this thread. The whole explenation about the classes was the biggest help I could find.
When you get on the official Rift site it's just too hard to actualy find out what a certain class does. The way you used your examples gave me a clear idea on what to expect.

This is a handy guide I bookmarked while installing Rift. Whenever I find myself to be troubled I come back to this guide, to find my answer resolved. Love it, and keep it up!